Research on Management Accounting Practices in Japanese Small- and Medium-sized Enterprises

<p>The purpose of this paper is to clarify the management accounting practices in the Japanese small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). In order to achieve this purpose, while recognizing the limit of the result of research by restricting the coverage of the survey, a mailing questionnaire investigation was conducted for the three industrial clusters, namely, the Tsubame-Sanjou area in Niigata Prefecture, the Ota-ku area in Tokyo, and the Higashi-Osaka area in Osaka. As a result of analyzing the overall implementation situation, the following six facts were revealed. Firstly, approximately 80% of the respondents have introduced the profit and loss measurement and cash management, approximately three-fourths have introduced the cost accounting, and approximately 50% have introduced the cost management, budgeting, and performance measurement. Secondly, the respective percentage of SMEs that have introduced the cost accounting and budgetary control in this survey were higher than that of previous surveys conducted in other cities. Thirdly, no statistically significant relationships was accepted between the characteristics of companies, such as the years, scale, feature of customers, feature of product, and feature of accounting department, of the businesses, and the respective implementation situation of budgeting, performance measurement, profit and loss measurement, cost accounting, cost management, and cash management. Fourthly, apart from these six management accounting practices above mentioned, more than ten SMEs have introduced the economic efficiency calculation of capital investment, Balanced Scorecard, and quality costing and quality cost management. Fifthly, it was identified that the considerable SMEs have thought that there are some management accounting practices which is necessary to review or introduce. Sixthly, for the budgeting, a statistically significant relationship was accepted between the implementation situation and the necessity of the review or introduction.</p>